A blog about food, focusing on vegan cooking for one person (or two small eaters).

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Monday, June 16, 2014

Spinach and Mushroom Turnover for One

Filling

½ TBLSP olive oil

1 slice of yellow onion, diced finely

1 green onion, sliced

1 garlic clove, minced

1 mushroom, diced

2 olives, diced (I used green olives
, but you could use kalamata)

1 TBLSP minced parsley or cilantro

2 cups fresh spinach

1 heaping teaspoon nutritional yeast

1 TBLSP firm tofu, mashed

Salt and pepper to taste

Crust

½ cup all-purpose flour

1 pinch salt

1 ½ TBLSP shortening or vegan butter

2 teaspoons ice water

2 ½ teaspoons of vodka or gin (you can skip the
alcohol and use all water, if you like)

1 teaspoon almond milk

Filling

Put the olive oil, yellow onion, and
green union in a shallow sauce pan or frying pan, and sauté for a few minutes,
until the onions begin to soften. Add in the garlic and mushrooms, and continue
to sauté until the mushrooms relax and the onions are really soft.

Add in the olives, parsley (or
cilantro), and spinach, and continue to sauté until the spinach is wilted and
soft.

Add in the nutritional yeast and
tofu, and salt and pepper to taste, and continue to sauté about a minute more. Get
it as dry as you can without burning it. Remove from heat and set aside.

Preheat the
oven to 375 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper

Crust

In a small bowl, combine the flour
and salt. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs

Sprinkle with ice water and vodka)
and toss with a fork. (Vodka is a pie-maker’s trick. If you use it, the crust
will be a little lighter. In such small quantities, though, you may not notice
the difference. The alcohol burns off, so you don’t taste it, but, like the
water, it evaporates and leaves little fluffy openings in the dough.)

Form the dough into a ball.

On a lightly floured surface, roll
the dough into a 7- or 8-inch circle.

Assembly

Place the filling on half of the crust circle. If it’s wet, put a leaf or two of fresh spinach under it to keep the
crust from getting soggy.

Fold the other half of the circle of
dough over the filling and press the edges together. I like to flip it over and
tuck any loose edges right onto the parchment sheet. Be sure the edges are well
sealed.

Brush the top with the almond milk. I
just use my fingers.

Prick the top with a fork. You can
make a pretty pattern, if you like, or just go in lines, about an inch apart.

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About Me

I've been a vegetarian in some form or other since I was a teenager. I never liked meat (especially red meat), and I won the battle with my mother when I was 17. Now, back then, you have to realize, it was hard to get tofu or other non-animal proteins in a regular grocery store, so although my general health improved (I stopped getting colds and flus, and I gained enough weight to stop looking like a holocaust survivor), I started having digestive problems.

Western doctors knew even less about nutrition than they know now, Mine suggested that I eat chicken or fish about twice a month to keep my body's own enzymes and acids to a decent level, and then stress wouldn't send me into such a miserable zoo of pain. So I did it. It worked pretty well for quite a while. But in 2006, I went vegan, now that it's easy enough to get non-animal proteins.

Now I'm starting a third blog, on vegan cooking for one (or two). It started with coming home from rehearsal and wanting just one cookie. But then it got fun--what else could I make that didn't involve leftovers, or, in the case of baked goods, guilt for eating the whole batch. And I thought I'd share this collection of recipes that I've accumulated.